Ok, my bard is now 63 and I'm looking ahead to see what gear choices to pursue. Is the crown worth it at 65? Does it stay good at 75?

I've got cooking 96 so I can make any foods that I really need. Currently I have been using tacos for the +chr and bit of Defense while pulling.

I am currently running a Dynamis LS and a Salvage LS and with no one currently serious about Bard Relic/Marduk drops those aren't really a problem to get on the lists now for them while I have 13 levels to go. I've already ended up with Bard Relic Feet and Hands by free lot.

Its an upper mid level hybrid piece. If you want Chr, Tacos and Noble's ribbon will win. If you want MP, Rolanberry Pie and a Hairpin are better. If you want a mix of both MP and Chr, then you have the crown. Later on, much better things appear at the head, like AF2 and W Turban.

EDIT: Bah, I said elegant ribbon, my fault

Edited, Dec 25th 2008 12:13am by anonone

____________________________

Psyconfuse 0 Merits, and proud of it. (I never even talked to the nomad moogle yet) 75BLM-75BRD-75SAM 71SMN-67WHM http://www.garageraja.com

Use opo nobles till you get demon helm then AF2 hat. That's pretty much the jist of it.

why not? because its a pain in the *** to get and its not worth it at all. the basic point of the crown is to get the hidden effect of chr + 7. however, you have to eat pamamas to do it. well if you have to eat food to get the effect, you might as well just eat a shogun rice ball, flint caviar, tavnazian salad, or a tavnazian taco along with a nobles ribbon cause you will get the same chr bonus but without all the hassle. you could also eat tuna sushi if you want 1 more chr.

the crown does add 50mp but most of the food listed adds 10-30mp along with it so its more of a question of is 20-30mp worth all the trouble to get a piece that is a huge pain in the ***, which you will only wear from 65-72(73)?

It's a decent piece of gear until you can wear the walmart turban or Bard's Roundlet, however if BRD is your highest job it will be very difficult to obtain at around the level you can equip it without high level help.

If I were in a pt with a brd that didn't have one, I wouldn't consider them gimp as long as there is something decent in the head slot.

I stopped leveling BRD to get the crown. It took me 2 weeks just to get my linkshell to help me colect all the items to get it. After I got it, I leveled from 65 to 75 in three days (before the exp patch) and got lucky on the roundlet and got the drop on the fourth day...

...suffice to say, even on my 100hr gaming episode - I knew getting the crown and waiting to level up was a huge waste of time.

Get it if you want it for its novelty, but its not an item to actually stop for.

Also -

There are very few full-time pieces of gear in the game. Opo-opo crown is not one of them. Just remember that if you DO plan on getting/using the Opo-opo crown, you lose your ability to eat other foods *AS WELL AS* making any gear sets that do not make use of the Opo-opo crown less effective if you require other food bonuses or, alternately, losing the HP/MP bonuses from gear swapping. This is all situational though, and more related to end-game activities rather than exp/merit.

Thanks for the replies, guess I'll go on without it. I have 75 mnk and 75 thf so the farming i figured was probably not too big of a deal. From Mnk, I have quite a few double purpose macro pieces, Kirins Osode, Suzy shoes (stoneskin macro mainly) Genbu's soup pot hat, B Haidaite (but i never see bard really focus on haste guess this piece is only so-so for Brd) Wal-mart Turban and I have dusk hands and feet. I could make a heavy haste build but thats not something I saw in the stickies.

I did stop and farm the Gaudy Harness and it seemed useful until I got to TOA ( sanction refresh) and Ballad II, now I never seem to run low on MP in Exp situations,

Is there anything I've missed on the food side or is it pretty much Tacos and Tuna Sushi for our foods?

B Haidaite (but i never see bard really focus on haste guess this piece is only so-so for Brd) Wal-mart Turban and I have dusk hands and feet. I could make a heavy haste build but thats not something I saw in the stickies.

You can utilize one as a BRD. May or may not actually -need- it, but if you've got the stuff, might as well macro it on Ni or Finale or whatnot.

Quote:

Is there anything I've missed on the food side or is it pretty much Tacos and Tuna Sushi for our foods?

Not often that we -need- food. If you want something cheap, Chai/Chai+1 is +2/+3 CHR for 3 or 4 hours. Tacos are usually how I'd go though, since you get MP and DEF for pulling...but don't feel like you must have food on. If your songs are sticking, then it's kinda moot.

I would agree with the Opo crown thing in general. Not worth going after. Personally, knew I'd be dinging into a Relic hat, so I never thought twice about it.

Chai is great because there's a vendor in Whitegate you can buy it from for like 58 gil and it lasts 3 hours. I buy one before I go party every time (well, usually 2-3 just in case my lullabies are being biatches and I die.)

On another note, no one answered me about the Elegant Ribbon D:

____________________________

[quote=********* why when i cannot buy potion i am eat a vile elixir for 13 HELTH POINT !!?![/quote]

I personally still use my Opo crown at 75 for a few key reasons: -its free -i am cheap and pamanas are only ~2k on the Fenrir Server -its free -i am cheap because i dont have any consistant farming methods (i do too much stuff with random LS folks too frequently to find a good farming substance) -outside of time invested, which isnt much if you get friends to help, its free -its a fancey little crown

all that aside, eventually when i stop being lazy (yes yes, i know i need to go farm) i will be getting the Demon Helm (+1) and eventually when i start doing Dyna, my fancey Bard Hat, then, with luck, Marduk's (that will be a while off, though /cry)

with all the above reasons given, there is still one other reason why i havent purposefully changed my head piece: i have around 118~120 chr when i actually go out to do stuff (even some +skill stuff thrown in, which i need more of, too T_T) so i have never really had a problem landing any debuffs, or sleeping pretty much anything.

Granted, i dont do tons of endgame on my BRD, i eventually want to. That being said, however, i dont think i would take anything less than Demon Helm +1 to any actual end game activity.

i dont think anyone will look down on you for still wearing it. if you have one, its always good to keep around (like i said, pamanas are cheap and its a decent boost to chr and MP if you need it). But until the 70s, i cant think of many better head pieces.

____________________________

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Baijin Server: Fenrir MANthra BRD75, BST77 almost all other jobs at 40 or better

The crown was fun as a challenge to get, but as others have said, there are better options. Yes, the food is cheap when using the crown, but you are stuck with just using that food and can't reap the benefits of other food stacked with a different gear choice.

I got my opo crown when my bard was still level 40something but I switched out of it when I could use demon helm. Now I use the Bard Roundlet almost exclusively. Of course, when I had my Opo there weren't many better options to get and Demon Helm used to cost over 1mil.

Since you say you run both a Dynamis LS and a Salvage LS, I would look into acquiring the Bard Roundlet then the Marduk's Tiara.

Does the crown remind anyone of the little crowns you used to get from Burger King? I have one, it is a decent piece, I am level 70 now, and plan to use it until I can equip AF2 head. I solod all the items most as THF, the Wyvern Skull as RDM. It was a challenge to say the least soloing those Wyvern's and dealing with the occasional aggro from Bombs, but I got it done.